Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Markus Schuller. The trends we discussed in Part 1 are influencing how we structure financially feasible pension systems. EU28 pension systems are well researched by European institutions and the OECD (here, here and here for example) They are rather moderate in their conclusions as these tend to carry politically explosive messages, notably: the first pillar is becoming more and more an anti-poverty provision, leaving it to the second and third pillars to secure an adequate retirement income. So how can we stimulate Pillars II and III? (The “three pillars” come from a 1994 World Bank publication describing: “a publicly managed system with mandatory participation and the limited goal of reducing poverty among the old [first pillar]; a privately managed mandatory savings system [second pillar]; and voluntary savings [third pillar]”). More...

By Markus Schuller. The global financial stock has quadrupled between 1990 and 2010. As capital markets exist to serve society and not the other way round, this article will address the following questions:
How can the changing demographics in EU28 be better managed through benefitting from capital market access and techniques?
As a consequence, how can we strengthen the third pillar (private pension provision) in times of rising inequality, equity market/risky assets discrediting and the dominance of non-value adding financial instruments for end investors. More...

By Roel Nieuwenkamp. Some international instruments, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (the OECD Guidelines) and the UN Guiding Principles for Human Rights and Business (UNGPs) have been important tools for filling these regulatory gaps. For example the OECD Guidelines establish an expectation that businesses behave responsibly throughout their supply chains, not just within their direct operations, extending to activity in potentially institutionally weak contexts where international standards and domestic laws may not be adequately enforced. More...

By Brian Keeley. Aid is one of those topics that always seems to attract controversy. So, it was no surprise that when the OECD released the latest data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries last week, it attracted a flurry of comment and discussion – some positive, some negative. More...

By Justin Dupre-Harbord. The Wikiprogress Online Consultation on Youth Well-being is open now and running until the 8th May.
How should we measure and define “youth well-being”?
What works for improving young people’s well-being?
How can we improve the process for effective youth policy. More...

By Julia Wanjiru. During the past weeks, analysts continuously warned about Nigeria’s high-risk elections. The initial poll date was postponed by three weeks in response to security concerns in the three Boko Haram plagued northeastern states. All land and sea borders were closed three days before the contest; expatriates and well-off Nigerians carefully moved their families out of the country, anxious about possible post-electoral violence. But in the end, Africa’s most populous country and number 1 economy managed to organise peaceful elections, which were internationally recognised as “free and fair” and led to the first democratic transition in Nigeria’s history. More...

By Bill Below. We humans have a dynamic relationship with the water we depend on. Call it fluid. Indeed, the story of civilisation is a water story. And, we’ve had fairly good success taming and stabilising our supplies of it. Other stories began well and ended badly. A theory posits that the fall of the Roman Empire can be traced in part to the high marginal cost of securing water for its colonies. There have also been unmitigated disasters. The desiccation of the Aral Sea in the 1960s, the failure of China’s Banqiao and Shimantan dams and the ongoing pollution of our precious groundwater reserves are examples. More...

• Volume 1. Thematic Chapters
• Volume 2. National and Regional Cases. More...

Welcome to the first 2015 Newsletter of the Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC). We have started into a year in which we hope to see numerous fruitful events and milestones in enhancing lifelong learning in the world’s communities.
GNLC Newsletter online. More...